Patients suffering from tremor, as in Parkinson's disease or Essential Tremor, have difficulty when performing tasks that require small muscle movements, especially those in the hands. One such task is aligning the two ends of an open-ended zipper, such as on a coat, jacket or sweatshirt.
Open-ended zippers comprise two tapes each having a set of attached zipper teeth, such that the zipper teeth of one tape can interlock with the zipper teeth of the other tape. A pin is provided at a lower end of the first set of zipper teeth, and a box is provided at the lower end of the second set of zipper teeth. The box includes a channel for receiving the pin of the first zipper tape. A pull tab is slidably attached for movement along both sets of teeth to bring the teeth into interlocking engagement as the pull tab is pulled upwardly, and to release the teeth from interlocking engagement as the pull tab is pulled downwardly. The pull tab is fixed for sliding movement on the second set of teeth and is prevented from sliding off the second set by the box at the lower end. The pull tab includes two parallel channels, open at upper and lower ends, within which each set of teeth fit. The channels narrow from the upper end to the lower end, thereby guiding the teeth of each set into interlocking engagement as the pull tab is pulled upwardly away from the box.
To interlock the sets of zipper teeth, a user must grasp the pin of the first tape by one hand and, while holding the pull tab adjacent the box of the second zipper tape, carefully manipulate the pin in three-dimensional space into and through the first channel of the pull tab until the pin fits into the first channel of the box.